At QIC we believe that sustainability is about understanding and responding to the range of complex issues and opportunities that we encounter today and anticipate into the future, while creating value for all of our stakeholders.
The basis of QIC’s approach to sustainability continues to be driven by the belief that material environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors can impact outcomes not only for investors, and therefore our investment portfolios, but for our broader society.
Ultimately, at QIC we view ESG as a set of risks and opportunities which when embedded into our thinking, gives us the benefit of long-term insight on a wide range of considerations. We therefore continue to invest the time to understand the key ESG issues we face as an investor and apply this knowledge in our investment decision making process and in developing practical solutions to ESG issues across all our investment portfolios.
As an investor in real estate, infrastructure, fixed income and private equity, we understand that ESG issues vary in materiality across asset classes, sectors and industries and we target our ESG approach to what is suitable for the investment. The range of responsible investment activity happening across our teams reflects our ongoing commitment to embed ESG to make better informed decisions that promote sustainable markets and societies, while delivering on our long-term investment obligations. You can read more about individual investment teams approaches in ‘ESG across asset class’ below.
While there are many important ESG issues to consider, we have collectively identified the key issues facing QIC as an investor and as a corporation. You can read about our six ESG focus areas and how we are managing ESG issues in our Sustainability Report.
Our approach to Responsible Investment practices is governed by our Responsible Investment Policy and Proxy Voting Standards.
The Modern Slavery Act 2018 (Cth) came into effect on 1 January 2019, placing a requirement on eligible entities to submit a Modern Slavery Statement annually. The Act seeks to actively reduce the risk of modern slavery occurring in Australia and across the globe.
As both an investment manager and a corporation, QIC and its subsidiaries aspire to carry out our business and investment activities responsibly and act with integrity in our dealings with clients, our people, our suppliers and the wider community.
We appreciate that modern slavery is a global phenomenon and to the extent we can, we recognise the opportunity for influence and commercial leverage to build wider awareness and to contribute to ultimately ending modern slavery practices. In our Modern Slavery Statement we report on the steps taken to identify and respond to the risk of modern slavery in investment portfolios, in our operations and supply chains of QIC and those of controlled entities.
We consider climate risk to be material and we are building our understanding and capacity to respond to this risk. Both the physical (increased severity of extreme weather events and changes in long term weather trends) and transition (changes in regulation, policy and technology) risks and opportunities associated with climate change have the potential to impact the investment portfolios and assets.
Understanding the potential risks and opportunities is key to delivering a disciplined approach to both our investment processes and asset management.
Climate research and policy is constantly evolving as will our approach. We will continue to engage with relevant stakeholders to ensure our approach is reflective of the latest thinking and is practically applied to our asset management processes. You can read more about our approach to climate risk, including our response to the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures recommendations in our ESG Reporting.